


Jumper

by SuckItStrider



Series: Radiostuck [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Gay Panic, Humanstuck, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Karkat Vantas, Radio, Suicide Attempt, To Be Continued
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-09-12 19:42:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9087403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuckItStrider/pseuds/SuckItStrider
Summary: Your name is KARKAT VANTAS, and you have THE WORST JOB. You would’ve quit by now, if not for...him. You have to stay. You’re kinda obligated to. 
(In which Karkat is a radio intern, and sees a suicidal boy across the rooftop)





	1. I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The song that'll appear a lot here is called Jumper by Third Eye Blind, and I got this entire idea when I was driving home as the sun fell and this came on the radio. Thanks to both my mom and Jake for proofreading. I might edit it some more at a later date, I still don't feel like this is long winded enough for Karkat.  
> Kiera Knightley is the main character in Pride and Prejudice  
> Crustacean is what a crab is  
> KK is a knight  
> Thus, Crustacea Knightley

It’s only been a month as an intern for the local radio station, and you’re already starting to regret it.

Money is money though, however much the radio host says he’ll help you with the music but doesn’t, as he never leaves his station, (he has terrible taste in both clothes and music, so it might not be so bad) or however much the other interns piss you off. You need the money.In any case, you only plan on being here as long as it takes to get enough to get out of this town, and from your idiot brother.

God, does he talk.

And talk.

And talk.

Both the weather and Kankri never stop raining down on you, relentlessly reminding you how much you can’t fucking stand it here. People for years to come will call you the Sufferer with how much you're tortured by life. Music and drawing are really your only solace in such a dark world, which is why you took up this job. You thought it'd be fun and relaxing. You thought wrong, apparently.

“Hey Karcrab, you’re up next!” Someone shouts from the radio booth, followed by giggling.

The ONE TIME you mention you have a hermit crab, your beautiful Crustacea Knightley, and everyone latches onto it like a bunch of goddamn lamprey, constantly sucking away both your will to live and your will to work with the shitstains any longer. You can’t quit fast enough.

You head down to the room with the soundboard, and start up a playlist. There really isn’t much for you to do, seeing as there’s three other interns who actually know what they’re doing.

You’re really just here for resume credit at this point, and so that your coworkers can do fuck all and your boss can get on your case instead of theirs whenever you space out and let the music stop. You really can't help it though, the world in your brain is so much better than the one you live in. Well, except for romcom movie marathons and the occasional pretty boy. You scowl as you realize you’ve been drifting again. You look out the window, and try to ground yourself.

Rooftops await your gaze. The station is stuck in the centre of a huge apartment complex, though the sprawling expanse is all broken up.

The apartments are practically separate skyscrapers, only occasionally meeting up, though you can't see it so well, with the sun falling and all. You’re always parked with the 7-11 shift. You don’t mind it so much, though, as you go home when everyone’s asleep, including your brother.

Surprisingly, in the dimming light of sunset, there’s no rain. There’s still a shit tonne of clouds though. There always is. The red haze is kind of nice, really. Once you get home you'll try and get that colour of paint for your art, you decide. It would go so well with the other new cans you recently got, Pumpkin Orange and Sunflower Yellow. What would you even call the hue out there? Blood red? No, that's too dark. Sunset red? Isn't that already a shade of orange? Fuck if you know. Back to the scenery.

The closest rooftop you can see is a good distance away, but you can still make out the huge ventilation fan, as well as the radio perched on top. You know the radio is permanently tuned to this station, because the first day of the job you went to go see. You’re a little surprised it wasn’t short circuited, with the weather being as shitty as it usually is. The nob was all gummed up though, which is why its stuck. You suppose someone could change it if they tried hard enough, though you were afraid you might break it. You know, being the twink you are and all.

You’re pulled out of your thoughts as someone slinks from the doorway of the roof to the edge, and perches there. From this distance, you can’t see much, but you can see it’s a lean and gangly boy, blonde, and couldn’t be much older than you. He has massive sunglasses on too, which cover at least half of his face. What the fuck kind of person wears sunglasses this late, you have no idea. Hell, what time is it anyway?

You tear your eyes away from him, and check the clock. 7:28.

Fuck.

You have just about half a song left. You look back to the boy, and realize he’s standing now. He’s also shaking. He's too close to the edge. He’s going to jump. You just know it. His feet are at the tipping point, and you're sure you're the only who can see him. The only person who can save him.

Fucking fucker fuck, you can’t get down there, and this playlist is almost done, shit shit shit shit shit, you can't do anything, especially not up here in your little music prison. You internally scream at yourself to do something, what would you want if you were in this position, GET YOUR GOD DAMN ASS IN GEAR VANTAS.

Suddenly, a song pops into your head. It’s the one you always listen to when you’re feeling like shit, and wanting to snip the life line. Praying and cursing to yourself, you scramble around the desk, searching for the disk you want. You can feel your mind trying to wander, but you rip the piece of shit back into place with an iron chain, angrily lashing it to the inside of your head. You can't afford to get distracted, and neither can the guy outside, he's got precious few seconds left, and you hope against hope he hasn't already taken the leap. 

Finally, after making a complete mess of the desk, you find it, the red faced cover staring back up to you. Hands trembling, you shove it into the CD player, and skip to the song. Excruciating seconds later, it starts playing. You can faintly hear it from the headphones you'd discarded in your panic.

You rush back to the window, all of two feet away, and the boy’s turned around. He steps off the low cinderblock railing, towards the fan, and gawks at the radio.

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding, and fall back into the chair. You’d been staring through the window, fists plastered against it, hoping, daring him not to do it.

To end it.

You know the feeling all too well, and you know how much it sucks.

The boy sits down now, back to the pitiful cement rail, and puts his face in his hands. Fucking hell, was that unnecessarily stressful. You rub a cold hand down your face, cold from the glass you’d been pushing desperately against, and feel wetness there. You sigh.

You need a coffee.

And also a washcloth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The host is totally Cecil Palmer. I'm intentionally not putting the name of anyone in just yet, because I feel it takes away from the atmosphere. The other interns are Roxy, Sollux, and Vriska though, just so you know. IDK if Sol or Vris will come into it much, but I do know Roxy will ;)


	2. I know something's wrong

From that day onwards, you take your job more seriously than you’ve ever taken anything else. Well, other than music and art, but that doesn’t seem a very fair comparison.

Every day, you clock in at exactly 7, and even hang around for awhile after 11 until someone ushers you out.

You watch, and you wait.

You change the music at the designated times.

You’re more involved with the team.

You become a model intern.

You watch, and you wait.

Your wages rise from $7 to $8.

Other interns come and go.

It’s been a year and a half since you started this job, and you could easily move out of this stupid, god-damned town, but you don’t.

You watch, and you wait.

The boy comes to the rooftop six more times, and every time it’s just as frightening as the first time, but every time you manage to get the disk into the music player, even if it cut off the middle of a playlist. Never the middle of a song though, that’d surely get you in trouble. You can always just start the playlist back on the next song, so you do that instead.

One time, the boy came out with his clothes ripped, and his shades were nowhere to be found. He was covered in blood.

That made you very afraid.

You wanted so, so badly to be down there with him, to help him through whatever was happening, to kick the shit out of whoever was doing this to him, whoever made him want to kill himself, but as always, you were stuck in your little music prison.

You’ve started to think that maybe, just like you, he’s getting dependant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah i know this is short, and also nearly a year overdue, but im getting myself back in the groove of writing. more to come soon, and i promise on my heart that i mean that.


	3. The angry boy, a bit too insane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Wild Roxy appears, and takes over the story for awhile. She furthers the plot though, so it works.

It’s been about 2 months since Roxy Lalonde decided to fill her time by being a radio intern at the local station.

Technically, she has no need to be working at all, but she needed to do SOMETHING with her life. It’s not like she needed the money, what with her mom being a successful author and all.

Instead of drinking away her loneliness like usual, she had decided to kick that part of herself to the street, and fix herself up.

Small steps.

Getting a part-time job.

Talking to people again.

She still couldn’t approach her family, but maybe someday.

Her shift was from 11am to 3pm, but she didn’t come home until around 2am.

Instead of going back home, she stayed at the station and talks to the other interns, until she got tired, and is forced to head back to her cold, dark apartment, without love but filled with intoxicants.

Baby steps.

She met a guy at her new job who was into coding and hacking too, which helped her crawl out of her shell immensely. Apparently, his reason to being an intern was to make extra cash for his brother, who got in an accident and couldn't work, due to some mental deficiencies. 

Sometimes, between 6pm and 10pm, a girl would come up to the station to hang out. She had short hair, and wore a little clip on cat tail and a blue hat with cat ears. One time, Roxy brought her own headband with cat ears attached, and some makeup, and gave the girl cat eyeliner, as well as black lipstick on her upper lip, pointing up to her nose. She was ecstatic, and the two of them role-played as warriorcats until she had to head home at 10.

She also got to know the other two interns, but not nearly as well. There was a girl with long hair, without an arm, and one lense of her glasses blackened out. She took the job as a stepping stone, but Roxy wasn’t very sure to what.

The other intern was a little snippety, with tired eyes and dishevelled hair, but had apparently been an intern here for longer than any of the others. That was saying something, considering Sollux had started about a year ago, way longer than what an average internship is.

He said his reason for staying so long was to get enough money to move out of the city, but whenever she brought him a cup of coffee, or came in to ask a question, he’s staring intently out the window, as if he’s looking for something out in the grey tops of the buildings.

She started to think there was an ulterior motive hidden behind his pointy bangs, and his angry expressions.

Today, in the middle of his shift, he came storming out of the studio, scrubbing at his eyes, and looked like if anyone approached him he would cuss them out.

She gave him an hour, then feeling that it would be a travesty if she let this slide, walked into the soundboard room, and sat down in the extra chair.

He was just finishing putting the next playlist in, and whirled around when she entered, and stared her down as she sat.

“What the fuck’s your problem,” he said, less of a question than a general grumpy backlash.

“I just wanna know what that whole thing an hour ago was about!” she responded, being as bubbly as was physically possible at 10:30 at night.

“Nothing you should care about.”

“So there WAS a thing! I knew it!”

“Fuck you, nothing happened, and if you even think anything did you’re an insufferable idiot with too much time on her hands to be getting into my private, goddamned business! I swear, every day I work here, an ounce of my fucking soul dies, and everyone else watches and laughs as I slowly turn into a husk, like the sadists you all are!”

Usually he was much harsher with the insults, to be perfectly honest. Whatever had happened had clearly shaken him up.

“Aw Crabcrab, I didn’t know you felt so strongly about me!”

“You’re a piece of shit, and also that’s not my name.”

“Well yeah, I know that, but you’re being crabby so it fits.”

He scrunched up his nose, and gave her a reproachful look, which made her laugh.

“Anyway, I still wanna know what made you so hot and bothered an hour ago.”

His reproachful look turned into one of disgust and confusion, and she laughed again, backtracking.

“Okay okay, wrong phrasing, I got that. Didn’t mean it like that. You were crying and it’s my duty as the only other person in the studio right now to find out what made you so upset and kick its ass with my awesome karate moves!”

“Somehow I doubt the existence of those moves.”

Looking fake offended, Roxy stood up, and being careful of the stuff in the room, did a couple kicks and punches and jabs, before sitting back down.

“Whatever nonexistent thing you keep insisting happened to me would be terrified, if it weren’t just your overactive imagination lying to you, and also shitting all over my beautiful, quiet room.”

“Oh absolutely, and my sick-ass rifle maneuvers would have this totally real and not imagined thing running with its tail between its legs!”

“He hasn’t got a tail, so your imaginary tapestry has been unwound!”

“Oh your problem’s a he, is it?” Roxy had a triumphant grin, bordering on shit-eating.

“Fuck. I didn’t mean to say that”

“Well you did, and now you have to spill the beans!”

He groaned, and put his head in his hands. “I hate you so much,” he muttered.

“You can hate me all you want, but I, the great detective Ro-Lal, has figured you out, and only a full testimony will get you outta this one, bub!”

“Fine. But don’t ever bring a rifle into the studio, I’m pretty sure Mr. Palmer would kill you.”

“That’s fair.”

“There’s… a boy.”

“Well yeah, I got that”

“Shut the fuck up, I’m an emotionally compromised teenager and not liable for what I do or don’t say to someone who keeps interrupting me”

“Okay, I’ll stop, Mr. Grumpy-pants”

“I’ve elected to ignore that. Anyway. There’s just some...dude, who comes out onto the roof sometimes-”

“Our roof?”

“No, not our roof you ignoramus, the roof outside the window. He comes out, and...and… he stands at the edge of the building, and he’s going to jump. I have to stop him, like the asshole I am. He comes, and he stands, and I’m terrified for him. Sometimes he’s covered in blood, and stumbling, and I just-”

He takes a big, shaky breath, and with tears in his eyes, blunders on.

“I have to help him somehow, I know what it feels like to be suicidal, and I wouldn’t with that on fucking anyone. Not my worst enemy. Not even my dickhead of a brother. No one deserves it, least of all that fucking boy with the shades on at night, who even wears shades at night? Some asshole with blond hair and huge aviators just pops into my life one day, and I can’t fucking not care! I CARE SO GODDAMN MUCH! AND IT HURTS! IT HURTS TO CARE ABOUT SOMEONE WHO PASSES INTO YOUR LIFE ON A WHIM, WHO YOU’LL NEVER MEET, BUT YOU STILL FUCKING CARE!”

He slumps down further into his chair, and sobs.

Roxy, at the mention of a boy with blond hair and aviators, had also slumped into her chair, but for a completely different reason.

She knew that boy.

Maybe it was time to catch up with her family, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listening to The Adventure Zone OST is surprisingly motivating, i highly recommend.


End file.
